Commercial Activity in Rental Property

You might have picked up a little news item a week or so ago about an inappropriately named Sushi Bar in Montreal which provoked complaints from neighbours, residents and, above all else, landlords. Though this particular example was at the extreme end of the scale, it does raise questions about which sort of businesses landlords should be letting to and how to ensure their commercial property doesn’t lose value because of careless tenants.

Loss of Reputation

Casual observers often struggle to differentiate between the landlord and the occupant and even if your letting business is squeaky-clean, that’s not to say that your tenants are. It’s easy for an unsavoury business to quickly gain a poor reputation amongst local residents and this reputation lives on with your property. Any future tenants in the will factor this into their calculations.

Business Activities

Every commercial landlord should have some idea about what business their tenants are running, but it is worth investigating this in some detail. A ‘retail’ business could be selling all manner of items from your property, legally or illegally, and this could negatively affect upon your property. The same is true for office space.

Legal Disputes

Whether landlords should discriminate against certain types of businesses in this way is a disputed area. Potential tenants will not take kindly to being rejected and existing tenants will seldom allow eviction cases to run smoothly, particularly if they are successful in what they do. If you’re in doubt as to what to do, it’s worth contacting both your local authorities and your landlord insurance provider; they may be able to guide you some way towards a solution.

It’s hard to put an exact value to the sort of damage that a badly run business can do to your property, but the reputation of a business often defines the reputation of the space. Don’t allow bad tenants to damage your name and be sure you know fully what your tenants intentions are before you take them on.